Renkei
Using a Skillchain Chart Say there are two, one-handed sword wielders, and they both have Fast Blade and Burning Blade. Now find the Weapon Skill on the Skill Chain Chart. Burning Blade is in the Fire section; and Fast Blade is in the Earth section. There is one arrow connecting them. Notice that the arrow is double ended. This means that you can start in the Earth section and go to the Fire section, or you may start in the Fire section and go to the Earth section. Both ways will result in a Skill Chain. If you start in Fire section and go to Earth you get an Earth Scission Skill Chain. Going the other way (Earth first followed by Fire) you get a Fire Liquefaction Skill Chain. The A-B-C lettering after some Weapon Skills are are a priority check for the game. Sometimes, a particular Weapon Skill can Skill Chain to more than one listing of the same Weapon Skill. A good example is Fast Blade (Earth) having a link to either Red Lotus Blade A (Fire) or Red Lotus Blade B (Wind). The game will always create the link to Red Lotus Blade A (Fire) when forced to choose between these two links. So you will always get a Liquefaction (Fire) effect. However, had the first attack been Keen Edge (Dark), there is no link to Red Lotus Blade A (Fire), but you can link to Red Lotus Blade B (Wind). Thus, you will create a Detonation (Wind) effect. Some Skillchains listed on the chart are more powerful than others, these Renkei encompass two different element at the same time, generally multiplying the damage from the Renkei and correponding Magic Burst by a substantial amount. The LVL 2 Skillchains are as follows: Fusion, Fragmentation, Distortion, and Gravitation. Three or more Weapon Skills You can do two or more skill linked chains. With three Weapon Skills the first two go as normal and the third Weapon Skill then follows, the timing remains the same for each part of the chain. At higher levels it is possible to unlock weapon skills that can preform two LVL 2 Skillchains in sucession, leading to a LVL 3 Light or Darkness Skillchain. See also Magic Burst for even more damage. Understanding Skillchains Level 1 Skill Chains Each weapon skill is associated with an element. Each element is associated with a latent elemental effect. The elements and their effects are as follows: Fire: Liquefaction Earth: Scission Water: Reverberation Wind: Detonation Ice: Induration Lightning: Impaction Light: Transfixion Dark: Compression These effects can be harnessed during battle (to do extra damage to an enemy) through using weapon skills in certain orders. Doing only 2 or more weapon skills can possibly release the element that the last WS (weapon skill) is associated with. Skill chains can only be made by combining elements in certain orders. Not every combination will unleash a skill chain. Here is a table showing which elements can be combined to create a skill chain. And in a list format: So they only work in certain combinations - the order in which you do them is important. A skill chain takes on the elemental effect of the second weapon skill that is done. With this in mind, to create a skill chain you need to do a weapon skill that has an effect from the left of the chart first, and follow it with a weapon skill from the top of the chart that can combine with it. Level 2 Skill Chains Ok. Now let's look at level 2 skill chains. Level 2 skill chains consist of 2 elemental attributes. There are only 4 level 2 SC (because the 8 elements are being paired up, leaving us with 4 pairs!). Here's how it goes: Fusion = Light + Fire Fragmentation = Lightning + Wind Gravitation = Dark + Earth Distortion = Water + Ice Note that these are not the elements used to make the skill chain happen! These are merely which elements are in the skill chain...hope that makes sense. Now here is a table telling you which effects are needed to make a level 2 skill chain. Remember, in order to make a skill chain at the top of the chart, you need to do a skill chain on the left that matches up with the desired chain first. Do the left one first, followed by the top one. Fusion = Liquefaction --> Impaction Fragmentation = Induration --> Reverberation Gravitation = Detonation --> Compression Distortion = Transfixion --> Scission As noted before, the elements used to make the SC (skill chain) are not the same as the elemental attributes of the SC. Ie: Fusion is made with Liquefaction followed by Impaction, but the elemental attributes of Fusion are Fire and Light. Alright, now we get to the catch with level 2 skill chains. Don't be misled, level 2 doesn't mean it has to follow a level 1 - it just means it has more elements involved than a level 1. So you don't have to do a level 1 in order to do a level 2. You can NOT however make a level 1 SC after/off-of a level 2. So make sure you get all your L1's in before you do your L2. Once a L2 SC is done, you can't make another L1 or L2 SC off of that last L2. Level 3 Skill Chains Level 3 SC's are made up of four elements each: Light = Light + Fire + Lightning + Wind Dark = Dark + Earth + Water + Ice So in order to make a L3 happen, you must have 4 elements involved, or basically 2 L2 SC's. Light = Fusion + Fragmentation Dark = Gravitation + Distortion Some WS's (high skill level ones) have the elemental attribute of a L2 SC. Ie: it has the attribute of Fusion, Fragmentation, Gravitation, Distortion. You can either combine 2 of these L2 WS's, or make an L2 SC and follow it with another L2 WS. Weapon Skill Elemental Attributes Just a note on these charts here. You will notice that many weapon skills have 2 or more elements associated with them. The elements are marked as A, or B, or etc. This is a priority marker (A being first, B second, etc). If a skill can be chained using both A or B, the game will use the A element, no matter how badly you want it to use B. And here's another catch. If you start a SC with a WS that has 'A' and 'B' (or more) elements, it will use the 'A' always. 'A' is always the element used if that WS is the start of the SC. Axe Great Axe Bow Club Dagger Gun Hand to Hand Katana Great Katana Scythe Polearm Staff Sword Great Sword BloodPact The level listed for the bloodpacts is not the same as the levels for weapon skills. The levels listed for blood pacts is the level that the Summoner job needs to be in order to have that ability. So if the level listed is 21, that means the summoner needs to be level 21 in order to use that ability. Links http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/vt/extra/03-1.html http://www.adennak.com/renkei.html http://chelestra.com/ffxi.html (Original Guide by Rixie) http://stu.westga.edu/~jsotos1/scx/